Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset

The Nicola Trussardi Foundation presents SHORT CUT, a project by Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset. In the month of May (from May 7th) the Ottagono of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan will become a new stage for contemporary art. Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset (1961, Copenhagen, Denmark / 1969, Trondheim, Norway) – after creating installations in some of the most interesting institutions in Europe and the United States – have designed a unique work for Milan that questions both the city’s daily life and its history. SHORT CUT penetrates one of Milan’s monumental symbols, drawing new trajectories to explore our urban space. The Ottagono of the Gallleria Vittorio Emanuele is the entrance door to the historic center of Milan. Built in 1861, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele is a triumph of glass and steel, boutiques and cafes. Admired and painted by the futurists, the Galleria has always been a crucial center in Milan’s cultural life. From the composers and singers of the nearby Opera House who enlivened its cafes and restaurants at the beginning of the 20th century, to the storms of tourists who stroll to the cathedral today, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele has configured itself as a giant covered square - a microcosm of Milan’s urban life and contrasts. For this scenario, Elmgreen and Dragset have conceived a new, original installation: after an imaginary trip through the center of the world, a white car and its caravan have appeared at the center of the Galleria, cracking the floor and destroying its precious marbles. Elmgreen & Dragset’s installation, titled SHORT CUT, stands as a metaphor for global tourism while it paves a way to uncommon destinations. SHORT CUT is a perfect game of high-definition illusionism: it redraws the perception of public architecture, opening its space to new interpretations and encounters. And yet, SHORT CUT is also an image of struggle and sudden confrontation, which produces new friction between the shining beauty of monuments and the immediate roughness of everyday life. Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset’s installation reverberates with images of surrender and protest; it undermines the solemnity of monuments with the primal energy of nomadism. With this installation by Elmgreen & Dragset, discover a secret passage through the history of Milan, while also mapping a new path across its present. SHORT CUT is the first contemporary art exhibition organized by the renewed Nicola Trussardi Foundation. With this show, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, the Nicola Trussardi Foundation leaves its former exhibition space and uses the imaginary landscape of art and culture to create a dialogue with the city of Milan. Michael Elmgeen & Ingar Dragset live and work in Berlin, and have been working together since 1995. They have taken part in some of the most important international art exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world, such as those at the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Zurich Kunsthalle and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, in Copenhagen. Selected for the 2000 Guggenheim Museum Hugo Boss Prize, they exhibited at the 25th Sao Paulo Biennial, at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, at the seventh Istanbul Biennial, at the Rooseum in Malmö and at Portikus, in Frankfurt. In 2003, they have already presented their work at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, in New York, and have been selected to take part at the Utopia Station section at the upcoming Venice Biennale. Their work is in the permanent collection of several museums in Europe, such as the Louisiana Museum for Modern Art, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Konstmuseum in Malmö, the Hamburger Bahnhof and the CGAC in Santiago de Compostela. Pressetext

Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset - SHORT CUT
Ort: Ottagono della Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, Mailand
Kurator: Massimiliano Gioni